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Mara Salvatrucha book author talks about anti-gang worker arrest

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The author of a new book about a violent Salvadoran gang that operates in Los Angeles interviewed the head of an L.A. anti-gang organization before police arrested the man for alleged gang activity.

Writer Samuel Logan says Homies Unidos founder Alex Sanchez had had enough of the gang life as he grew older.

Samuel Logan: "The freedom, the street life, the drugs, the girls, the music, the camaraderie. He was able to look past that as he got older and matured and looked into this future and saw that he wanted to have kids, saw that he wanted to have sort of a stable life, because they say in the MS-13 there are three destinations that you can go: the hospital, the grave, or the prison."

Logan is author of This is for the Mara Salvatrucha – Inside the MS-13, America’s Most Violent Gang. He spoke with KPCC’s "Patt Morrison." Sanchez is awaiting trial on charges he’s worked with the MS-13 gang as he ran Homies Unidos.